Predestination?

Has God already Decided who will be Saved?

PREDESTINATION
DOES THE BIBLE TEACH PREDESTINATION? HAS GOD ALREADY DECIDED WHO
WILL BE SAVED AND WHO WILL BE LOST? ARE SOME BORN TO DIE
ETERNALLY WHILE OTHERS WILL LIVE FOR EVER? HAS GOD ALREADY
PLANNED IN ADVANCE WHO WILL LIVE WITH HIM FOR EVERMORE AND WHO
WILL DIE IN THE LAKE OF FIRE?
by
Keith Hunt
There are two verses that use the word "predestinate" in the
New Testament(NT). They are Romans 8:29 and Romans 8:30. The word
"predestinated" is used twice, in Ephesians 1:5 and also verse
11.
The Greek words mean: To limit in advance, determine before,
ordain. From the Greek PRO "fore" i.e., in front of, and
HORIDZO, to mark out or bound, appoint, limit. Yes, indeed, the
NT does teach "predestination" in some manner or form.
Let's look at these four verses and see what they DO say,
and what they DO NOT say.
"For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate TO BE
CONFORMED to the IMAGE of His Son..." (Rom.8:29).
Nothing is said here about being foreordained to DAMNATION
or "being lost," but only being foreordained to BECOME LIKE
Christ!
"Moreover, whom He did predestinate them He also CALLED: and
whom He called them He also JUSTIFIED... (Rom.8:30).
There is no word of calling or foreordaining people to be
"lost" in this verse. Only determining before to JUSTIFICATION
and GLORY. All in these two verses are speaking of something
POSITIVE, a CALLING in the mind of God beforehand for ones that
would be called to be conformed to the image of His Son,
predestinated to be called, and in that calling to be JUSTIFIED,
and hence to become and brought into the very IMAGE of Christ.
"Having predestinated us unto the SONSHIP (Greek should be
understood) OF CHILDREN by Jesus Christ Himself..."
(Eph.1:5).
Once more, only a positive connotation here with the word
predestinated. God has determined in advance that those whom Paul
called "us" were to be brought to the sonship of CHILDREN through
Christ Jesus.
"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all
things after the counsel of His own will " (Eph.1:11).
Again, nothing her about God planning to foreordain people
to eternal death and destruction, but only to obtain an
INHERITANCE, according to His own counsel and will.
And that will of His we need to search out and understand,
providing God has in His word revealed that will to us. As we
search the Scriptures we shall indeed find that the counsel and
will of the purpose in the Eternal predestinating to obtain an
inheritance, is for those CALLED to be JUSTIFIED and made into
the IMAGE of Christ Jesus. And in this CALLING is part of the
whole key to understanding the purpose and will of God for
everyone that has ever become a human being when an egg and a
sperm unite.
DOES GOD WANT EVERYONE IN HIS KINGDOM?
When we read the Bible we should be willing to read it ALL.
If we believe God is speaking to us through His Word the Bible,
if we believe the Bible is the inspired Word of the Eternal, if
we believe that this Eternal God is alive and is all powerful,
then we should believe He has the power to write and preserve His
word. We should then read it from cover to cover, and in trying
to understand the doctrines and teachings the Lord wants us to
understand, we should never exclude other verses that would throw
light on the subject we are studying, or even disprove some idea
that we or others may have running through our mind as we think
about what a certain verse may be teaching.
We should not be afraid to ask questions. Even to ask
questions to the Father in heaven, and to let Him answer us,
often by the Word He has already given us. But again, we need to
understand that to get those answers from the Word, we need to be
willing to read it from Genesis to Revelation, with meditation
and humility, with an attitude of a willingness to be corrected.
So, let's ask this straightforward question to God: "Do you want
all to come to your truth, to repent, and to be saved?"
Let God answer us through His Word: "It is written in the
prophets, and they shall ALL BE TAUGHT of God...." (John 6:45).
Also: "The Lord is.... not willing that ANY should PERISH, but
that ALL should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
Nowhere in God's word does He say that He wants or delights
in the death of the wicked, in fact the Eternal says just the
opposite. Read it for yourself in Ezekiel 18: 21-23, 27-28, "But
if the wicked will TURN from all his sins that he has committed,
and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right,
he shall SURELY LIVE, he shall NOT die. All his transgressions
that he has committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him; in
his righteousness that he has done he SHALL LIVE. Have I ANY
PLEASURE AT ALL that the wicked should DIE? says the Lord: and
NOT THAT HE SHOULD RETURN FROM HIS WAYS, AND LIVE? .... Again,
when the wicked man TURNS away from his wickedness that he has
committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he SHALL SAVE
his soul ALIVE. Because he considers and turns away from all his
transgressions that he has committed, he SHALL SURELY LIVE, he
shall NOT die."
There it is in clear plain language from the Lord God. Such
easy to understand verses mean what they say and say what they
mean. The Eternal is not WANTING one single person to die for
eternity. He is wanting everyone to be SAVED, to LIVE with Him
forever, IF they will only REPENT, and turn away from wickedness,
and do that which is lawful and right.
The Father has created all people with free moral agency. He
did not create humans as some kind of "robots" that have no power
of choice, but are already pre-set to function and end up as the
wicked or the righteous.
Once more God makes this very clear to us in Deut.30:15-19,
"See, I have set before you this day LIFE and good, and DEATH and
evil, In that I command you this day to love the Lord your God,
to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His
statutes and His judgments, that you MAY LIVE and multiply ....
But IF your heart TURN AWAY, so that YOU will NOT hear, but shall
be drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them; I denounce
unto you this day, that you shall SURELY PERISH .... I call
heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have SET
BEFORE YOU LIFE AND DEATH, blessing and cursing: THEREFORE CHOOSE
LIFE, that you and your seed may live."
Then we have the often quoted verse that appears on highway
signs and sides of farm barns - John 3:16, "For God so loved THE
WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believes
in Him should NOT perish, but HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE."
It is WHOSOEVER - anyone, not just the "selected beforehand
for eternal life" ones, but Jesus was sent by the Father for ALL
THE WORLD, and any person, whosoever in the world who will
believe in Christ Jesus to be saved, shall not perish for
eternity but shall have everlasting life.
The Eternal God of heaven created mankind as free moral
agents, to be able to CHOOSE either the way that leads to LIFE or
the way that leads to DEATH. God does NOT MAKE THAT CHOICE FOR
ANYONE. Each person must decide FOR THEMSELVES which way they
will choose to go. But the desire of the Lord is that each of us
will choose to go the way that will lead to ETERNAL LIFE! It is
not the Father's desire that ANY should PERISH, but that all
would REPENT, turn from wickedness and do the will, the statutes,
the commandments, and to have the love of God within them, that
leads to LIFE FOREVER MORE!
Whatever "predestination" may be the word of God makes it as
clear as a cloudless sunny day that it IS NOT pre-setting,
foreordaining, some individuals to eternal death, even before
they are born. The Father desires ALL to be in His Family and
Kingdom.
PREDESTINATION - CALLED
Read again those verses in the NT where the word
"predestination" is used (Rom.8:29 and 30 together with Eph.1:5
and 11). We notice words like FOREKNOW, CALLED, HIS WILL, OWN
WILL.
Predestination has to do with God's WILL, His PURPOSE and
His FOREKNOWN PLAN. It has to do with being CALLED within that
purpose, and counsel of His OWN WILL.
God has never deliberately in advance decided which
individuals before they were born, would NOT be saved, or would
be designated to die in what the Bible calls the "second death"
(see Rev.20) and so never be given any free choice to either
choose death on the one hand or life on the other. We have seen
that the Father DESIRES, would WANT all and everyone to be saved
and to choose LIFE!
We should be now seeing that predestination has to do with
being CALLED to receive an INHERITANCE, to be made into the IMAGE
of Christ Jesus, to be what the NT calls GLORIFIED, as fully
explained in 1 Corinthians 15. Predestination has to do with the
WILL and PURPOSE, the PLAN if you wish, of the offering of
SALVATION to mankind, and the way God has determined that plan
beforehand, even as Christ Jesus was foreordained to be the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:18-20). Yes,
the blood of the Lamb that redeems individuals from death to life
was predestinated, appointed, determined before the foundation of
the earth to be the focal point, and comer stone of the salvation
plan of God, just as that God had determined before within that
plan to make humans with freedom to choose life or death as they
would be CALLED to make that choice. And therein that small word
"called" lies part of the key to this whole understanding of
predestination.
HOW ARE WE SAVED?
Men and women may dream up out of their own imaginations
various ways to "get saved" or "live forever" but what does the
Word of the Lord have to say as to HOW a person can be saved? It
is written: "Neither is there salvation in ANY OTHER, for there
is NONE OTHER name under heaven, given AMONG MEN whereby you must
be saved" (Acts 4:12, where the context is speaking about Jesus
Christ).
Jesus Himself said, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am
the door of the sheep ... by ME if any man enter in, he shall BE
SAVED ... he that enters NOT by the door ... but climbs up some
other way, the same is a thief and a robber" (John 10:7,9).
In another place Jesus said, "No man comes to the Father BUT BY
ME."
Living to the best of YOUR knowledge, YOUR standards, YOUR
society, YOUR system of beliefs, doing things the way YOU look at
it, WILL NOT SAVE ONE SINGLE SOUL, it certainly will not save
YOU!
The Father in His plan of salvation for every human that has
and will ever live on this earth, has beforehand determined that
it is ONLY through His Son Christ Jesus that individuals will be
saved from death to eternal life!
Unless you are brought to Christ, know about Him, come to
understand what He did as a human on this earth nearly two
thousand years ago, why He lived and why He died, unless you see
that HE is your only hope and savior, unless you accept HIM as
your personal Savior from sin and death, you CANNOT be saved. It
is just that simple.
Unless the very Spirit of Christ is IN YOU, you are NONE of
His, you are not A CHILD of God the Father in heaven! Read
carefully Romans chapter 8.
Everyone that is born is created with free moral agency,
freedom to learn, freedom to choose the way to live, the way of
death or life. But they are also created not knowing God or His
ways. Babies do not come out of the womb with a built in
knowledge of the God of heaven and His Son Jesus Christ, and the
truth of how to gain eternal life. They are in this respect
BLINDED so to speak, to "spiritual" things. Why, humans have to
be taught to READ in their language, if they ever want to learn
about what the words of the Lord are that the Bible contains.
A number of things must transpire in an individuals life in order
to "find God" as some call it. Paul gives us part of what must
happen for people to come to Christ in order to be saved. We can
read about it in Romans chapter 10 and verses fourteen through
twenty. God is at work bringing individuals to Himself and His
Son, but until that knowledge comes to them, people of all races
are without that knowledge, they are blinded to that knowledge,
they just do not know that they do not know the way to true
eternal life.
Paul goes on in Romans chapter eleven to show that God has
not cast away His people Israel, but that an ELECTION within them
have been granted knowledge of Himself and the way to be saved,
but the rest WERE BLINDED! Read it friends, mark verses seven
through ten, never forget those verses. All are born BLINDED to
spiritual truths, and UNTIL God CALLS, until He chooses to ELECT
and grant spiritual truth about Himself and His son and the way
to salvation, then people simply stay within the spiritual
blindness they were born in.
Now, concerning Israel, that blindness is IN PART, for a
time, to allow Gentiles to receive the light of the Gospel of
Christ, UNTIL the plan of God for that portion of His overall
plan of salvation, is fulfilled, UNTIL the "fullness of the
Gentiles be come in" as Paul put it, and then God will set to
work in a mighty way with all the blinded in Israel through the
Messiah, when He comes. Read the wonderful verses of Romans 25 to
32. All are born in UNBELIEF, BLINDNESS to the spiritual truths
of salvation, but in God's great plan of redemption for all
humans, as He works that plan, ALL in His good time will have a
chance for unbelief to be removed from their minds, and to come
to the knowledge of the Father's MERCY He wants to show them
through His Son Christ Jesus.
I want you to further see this mystery but truth of God,
that He has revealed now to us in clear and plain language in the
NT.
Turn to Hebrews 3 and read verse 7, which says, "Wherefore
as the Holy Spirit says, Today IF you will HEAR His voice, HARDEN
NOT your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation
in the wilderness."
Israel, in the wilderness DID HEAR the voice of God (that
can be seen from Deut.5) and through Moses they were instructed
about God and His ways. After hearing, after being instructed,
after coming to know God, you are still a free moral agent, you
can still choose to either accept the voice and ways of the Lord,
the way to life, or you can choose to accept the way of death, to
reject the voice and calling and election of God. What is the
clear inference here? It is this. Before knowing and hearing the
truths of the living God, our hearts were HARDENED and BLINDED
towards Him. We just did not really KNOW Him. Oh, we may have
been a "good" person as "good" is defined by our society we found
ourselves living in, and even as defined by what others had told
and taught us what "religion" was. But, like Israel of old, as
they were in darkness as to the nature and ways of the true God
while in Egypt, as their hearts were hardened and blinded to the
true spiritual path of the way of salvation from the true God, so
with us it is the same UNTIL God calls us, until we really hear
His voice, often today through the way Paul has told us about in
Romans chapter 10.
Then, even AFTER our hearts have been enlightened to the
Gospel, through the Word and the instrument of teaching and
preaching, we can still choose to REJECT that calling from God,
turn our back on it, refuse to REPENT of sin, refuse to accept
Jesus as our personal savior, and CONTINUE to HARDEN our hearts,
just as many in ancient Israel did in the wilderness, after God
called them to hear His voice and His ways and His plan of
salvation for them.
Still further. The NT makes it very clear. Jesus made it
very clear that REPENTANCE was necessary if anyone wanted to be
saved. You can look up the words "repent" and "repentance" in say
Strong's Concordance of the Bible and come to see this truth for
yourself. I will here just refer you to Jesus' words in Luke
13:1-5.
Repentance is necessary if you and I are NOT to PERISH I
I have a full and in-depth study article on the subject of
repentance on this Website.
Please turn to 2 Peter 3 and verse 9. Mark this verse well.
It reads: "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some
men count slackness; but is LONGSUFFERING to us-ward, NOT WILLING
(wanting) that ANY should PERISH, but that ALL should come to
REPENTANCE."
As God wants, desires, ALL to be saved, and as repentance is
absolutely necessary for each individual to be saved, then it is
only proper and correct that God here, through Peter, tells us it
is His WILL, His DESIRE, that ALL should come to REPENTANCE!
Now, notice this verse. In writing many things to Timothy,
one being how the servant of the Lord should basically conduct
himself towards others as he teaches and preaches the truths of
God to them, especially to those blinded to truths and deceived
about real truth, Paul wrote this: "In meekness instructing those
that oppose themselves; IF God peradventure WILL GIVE THEM
REPENTANCE to the ACKNOWLEDGING OF THE TRUTH; And that they may
recover (awake, mrg.reading) themselves out of the snare of the
devil, who are taken captive by him at his will" (2 Tim.2:
25,26).
Ah, do you see this verse shows us the truth I am here
expounding, in another form. As we study the subject of
repentance fully and in-depth as given throughout the entire
Bible, we soon come to see that the subject is only correctly
understood by a knowledge of God's word, by understanding His
character, His Holiness, His will, commandments, statutes, and
judgments. By understanding what the Bible teaches concerning sin
and righteousness, what to repent of, and how God expects us to
henceforth live.
Until we come to the knowledge and understanding of all the
above, we are in darkness, we are blinded to the spiritual truth
of God on the subject of repentance, and we are just living the
way that we or our society deems is a good way to live, a way
that may keep us out of trouble with the laws of the land, but
still the way that the Bible says leads to death. For it is
written, "There is a way that seems right until mankind but the
end thereof is the way of death." Only understanding what God
tells us is sin, righteousness, and repentance, can we ever come
to really repenting in the way that leads to eternal life.
And that true understanding must be first given to us from
God, by the way of leading our minds to His word the Bible, and
then by His Spirit and/or His true ministers teaching us the
correct knowledge and understanding of repentance unto salvation.
We then have our part to do in being a willing recipient of
what the Eternal is wanting to give us, we must be willing to
admit error, want truth, be willing to be corrected, want and
acknowledge the truth now being presented to us, and so we come
back to the verses quoted above, 2 Timothy 2:25,26.
We then can recover ourselves from the snare of the Devil,
from deception, from false teachings, from wrong habits and
practices, from all and everything that has kept us apart from
the true ways and thoughts of the Lord. All this has to do with
the CALLING of God.
CHRISTIANS ARE CALLED BY GOD
There are MANY verses in the NT that show we as Christians
are CALLED to so be by the Father in heaven, who wants SOME
during all ages to be His children, His literal sons and
daughters, brothers and sisters to His Son Christ Jesus, who sits
now at His right hand.
Christians are called, they are elected, they are chosen.
Until that election of grace is given to them, they, like all
people, are no different than those Gentiles to whom Paul said,
"That at that time you were without Christ (blinded, not knowing
the word of God, or the way of salvation through Christ Jesus,
not knowing the truth about sin and repentance) being aliens from
the commonwealth of Israel (aliens from those having already been
called and chosen to understand God's spiritual truths) and
strangers from the covenants of promise (not knowing the ways to
the promise of eternal life), having NO HOPE, and WITHOUT GOD in
the world (there is only one sheep fold and one way into that
fold, only one name by which you can be saved). BUT NOW (after
being called and elected and chosen) in Christ Jesus (coming to
understand true repentance and accepting Jesus as personal
savior) YOU who sometimes were FAR OFF are made NIGH by the BLOOD
of Christ" (Eph.2:12-13, with added comments by myself).
It will be edifying to look at some of the NT verses that
show to be a Christian one must be called, elected and chosen to
that vacation by God.
Peter on the Feast day of Pentecost, speaking about
receiving the Holy Spirit, said it was for all to receive, even
as many as the Lord shall CALL (Acts 2:38,39).
The Christians at Rome, Paul said, were CALLED by Jesus
Christ (Romans 1:6; and as was Paul on the road to Damascus, see
Acts 9 and Galatians 1:13-16).
God CALLS people according to His plan and to His PURPOSE
which He is working out on this earth (Rom.8:28).
God calls Christians a REMNANT, ELECTED, CALLED to grace
(Rom.11:5). Paul said the Corinthians could see their CALLING (1
Cor.1:26).
Christians are the ELECT of God (Col.3:12).
Paul says to walk worthy of God, the one who CALLED US to
glory (1 Thes.1:12). God has CHOSEN individuals to salvation in
this age (1 Thes.2:13).
God calls people according to His overall plan (1 Tim.1:9).
There are many other verses that say the same as the verses
above. You can find them by either using Strong's Concordance of
the Bible or a book like Nave's Topical Bible.
God is calling people to be His children, to be Christians.
Is that calling a LARGE calling or a small calling today. Well,
that depends from which side of the coin you want to look at it
from.
Jesus clearly said: "MANY are CALLED, but FEW are CHOSEN."
So now, we see that a called and a chosen person are not always
the same! It is clear that many may be called to have light on
God's word and be taught that truth. It may be presented to them
in ways we have already noted from what the word of God tells us
He works to present those ways to people. But, having it
presented to you, does not automatically mean you or anyone will
MOVE FORWARD from that point. We have seen that no one is a robot
in God's hands, all have continual free agency throughout their
physical life. We have seen we have our part to do. God may say
to us, "Look I here present to you death on the one hand and life
on the other" but He does not make that choice for us, for He
goes on to say, "You must choose, but please choose life." Yet,
we must do the choosing. When we choose to move forward and take
hold of life eternal, we are then part of the CHOSEN.
So, true it is, MANY today are hearing and coming to the
knowledge of the true God and His word the Bible. We, as part of
the commission Jesus gave to the Church, to His followers in
Matthew 28: 19-20, are to "head up, move on out" (as the wagon
master would shout to the wagon train) and do what the church did
do in examples such as given throughout the book of Acts. We are
to go to the highways and the byways, and call many to be
Christians. We are to teach them, if they will be taught, to move
on and become disciples of Jesus themselves.
All that is one side of the coin, and very important at
that, for it is part of the word of God we are to live by. But,
there is another side, when looking at the world as a whole. Yes,
we are to not hold back and to go forth to seek and to make
disciples of Christ Jesus and children of God the Father, yet
from an overall picture of the way the world has been from the
beginning, despite our very best efforts, not that many even come
to the knowledge of the truth of the word of God. Put aside the
one BILLION Roman Catholics in the world today, and all the
Baptists, Pentecostal churches, and others. We in the 7th day
Sabbath keeping churches (even including the 13 million SDA's in
the world) would say all those "Christians" are on the wrong
path, still deceived under the power of Satan. Hence, with all
our very best efforts that we can all muster together as Sabbath
keeping organizations, we are CALLING VERY FEW, AND those moving
on to be the chosen and the ELECT are only a tiny fraction of the
small faction we are calling in the first place.
And with this side of the coin in plain view, Paul was able
to write: "For you see YOUR CALLING(and chosen status) brethren,
how that NOT MANY wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble, are CALLED (even less chosen)" (1 Cor.1:26 with added
comments by myself).
And, within the plan of God OVERALL that He is working out
over the past ages, this age, and the age to come, that is right
on target for Him. For as the example with Israel given to us in
Romans 9,10,11, all are indeed BLINDED until the election of
grace goes to them. but that does not mean they are LOST forever,
already determined beforehand by God to be cast into the lake of
fire and be eternally destroyed, without them ever having a
chance to choose either death or life. The whole and wonderful
truth of Romans 9 through 11 is given in another study article
concerning the great last feast of Leviticus 23 and the White
Throne Judgment of Rev.20. That study is also on this
Website.
The truth of the matter is that NOT EVERYONE has been or is
today being CALLED let alone CHOSEN. But God has determined from
the beginning that HE WILL ALWAYS HAVE SOME out of every age that
will be His true children, that will listen to His CALL, will
accept being taught, will want to be taught His way of salvation,
and who will go forward, go on to be CHOSEN, AND be a part of the
THEN ELECT. For in making human nature the way it is, God knew
that human nature was a mixture of both good and evil, many
choose man's way that he calls "good" because they want to live
happily, and with peace, because they do not want to have sorrow
and evil and pain heaped upon them. They can see from common
sense logic of the human brain that some ways to live and work
and engage in life within the spectra of other humans, produces
joy, peace, happiness, fun, and plain "good" and other ways of
living produce pain and evil. And they can know all this WITHOUT
knowing about God and His word. It is all a part of what God
created in human nature when He created male and female.
So, God knew in advance that when He called some to come to
the understanding of true spiritual knowledge of Himself and His
word and plan of salvation, that SOME would always be there to
accept and want to be a part of that plan. Oh, yes, at times it
was very few indeed, as in the days of Noah and his family, and
in the days of Elijah the prophet, but be it a few as with Noah's
family, or a few more, as with Elijah and the 7 thousand in
Israel that God told him about, who had not bowed the knee to
Baal, there was ALWAYS some in each age who would hear the call
from God and become His children. And it is the same to this very
day.
CAN ANYONE BE A CHRISTIAN TODAY?
I have to a point answered this question already, but we
need to let Jesus make it even clearer to us.
"NO MAN can COME TO ME except the Father which has sent me DRAW
HIM....." (John 6:44).
"YOU have not chosen me, but I HAVE CHOSEN YOU...." (John 15:16).
"All that the Father GIVES me shall COME to me....." (John 6:37).
"NO MAN can COME TO ME, except it were GIVEN UNTO HIM of my
Father" (John 6:65).
Pretty plain words I would say. In simple easy to understand
words Jesus has put in a nut shell, all that I have written about
above in more detailed language.
Until God CALLS a person by His Spirit through the
instrument of His Word and preaching/teaching (Romans 10:14,17),
he CANNOT COME to Christ, he cannot be saved (see Prov.1:23;
Ezekiel 36:26,27). All are in a state of spiritual darkness and
blindness unto God CALLS to them, and God had determined
beforehand, in advance, that He would call SOME from all ages
(the age of Adam to tower of Babel, age of Babel to the Flood,
age from after the flood to Moses, age from Moses to John the
Baptist, age from Christ to Acts 2, the age from Acts 2 to the
coming again of Jesus in glory, the age from Christ's return to
the end of the 1,000 year millennium,and the age of the White
Throne Judgment of Rev.20) to understand and be given His word of
truth. They then would have to make a choice to either choose
death or life, but God would plead with them to choose LIFE! And
if they so did, if they so chose life, they would be His literal
children, they would be JUSTIFIED, they would be foreordained to
be CONFORMED to the IMAGE of His son Jesus, they would then be
part of the chosen and the elected, to obtain an INHERITANCE
according to His purpose and will.
ARE YOU PERSONALLY KNOW BY GOD BEFORE CONCEPTION?
Some believe and some teach that every single individual
person that God CALLS to salvation in whatever age they live,
were all individually known by God before they were even
conceived in their mother's womb.
If we stop and think about this idea for a while, if God
knew us, planned for us individually, hundreds or thousands of
years in advance, then His panning, would have included in many
individuals "coming into being" such things as, fornication,
rape, incest, and adultery for many individuals who have become
children of God down through the centuries, have come into being
as humans through such happenings.
The Bible gives us NO SUCH IDEA that God knew and planned us
BEFORE conception. Only THREE individuals in the entire Bible,
possibly FOUR (one being Cyrus whom God called by name before
conception) are we told about that God FOREKNEW before conception
and birth ...... JEREMIAH, JOHN THE BAPTIST, and JESUS
CHRIST!
In specifically telling us that He knew those people before
forming them in the womb, the clear indication to me is that the
rest of us from after Adam, were NOT specifically and
individually know by God, or specifically and individually
planned by God BEFORE conception.
The FOUR verses we have looked at in the NT concerning the
use of the words predestinate and predestinated are all used in
the context of words like WHOM, THEM, US, and WE. All in the
PLURAL and in the context of MORE THAN ONE, as part of MANY, as
part of CHILDREN, plural.
What this means is this: God, from the beginning, before the
foundation of the world, had formed a plan, had decided to create
physical flesh and blood humans that He wanted to be His literal
children, with His nature and His mind set, to be very much like
Himself. He would create them blinded to His spiritual truth,
needing to be shown that truth, and giving them the freedom to
then choose to walk in that truth or reject it, decide to choose
either death or life for all eternity. He planned beforehand the
coming of the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, for
He knew beforehand that with the human nature He would create in
mankind they would fall into sin, and so would need to be
redeemed from sin. And He planned beforehand, that He would CALL
and HAVE CHILDREN, PLURAL, an US, a WE, a GROUP of more than one,
continually being ADDED to, continually becoming more PLURAL.
IS THIS THE ONLY DAY OF SALVATION?
The often quoted verse, that is used by some to suggest that
today is the ONLY time of salvation, is the greatest proof
against such ideas. The King James version of the Bible is a
wrong translation from the Greek, which in turn is from the
Hebrew Old Testament. It should read: "....I have heard you in AN
accepted time, and in A day of salvation ..... Now is AN accepted
time, behold, now is A day of salvation" (2 Cor.6:2). Paul is
quoting from Isaiah 49:8. Look both passages up in Green's
Hebrew/English/Greek/English Interlinear, and you will see what I
say is correct.
PREDESTINATION has to do with being CALLED, being called to
salvation, to follow Christ, to receive an inheritance of the
glory of the image of Christ. It has to do with being called to
fulfil the plan and purpose of God that He is working out here
below in His creation of mankind.
God called some to salvation before the first advent of
Christ. He called some during the ministry of Jesus on earth. God
has being calling some in this present age from the start of the
NT true church unto now. And God will call the whole world and
those born into that world, during the age to come, the one
thousand years or what is called the millennium, spoken about in
Revelation 20.
And further more, there is a White Throne Judgment period
just before the New heavens and the New earth come into
existence, in which the "books" or in Greek, the "biblos" or
Bible is opened to millions who are raised in a resurrection to
physical life. These are individuals from babies to old men and
women who have lived but were never truly called to understand
the word of God and the way to salvation.
God is the one who CALLS. Some He called YESTERDAY, some He
calls TODAY, some He will call TOMORROW, some He will call in the
yet FUTURE. The Eternal has concluded ALL under sin that He might
have mercy upon ALL as Paul was inspired to write. But He does it
according to His WILL, His PURPOSE, His overall plan of
salvation.
"What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God?
God forbid! For He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then it is not of him that wills, nor of
him that runs, BUT OF GOD THAT SHOWS MERCY ..... For God has
concluded them ALL in unbelief, that He might have mercy
upon ALL" (Romans 9:14-16 and 11:32).
God will indeed have and call ALL to MERCY, to clearly
understand His grace and way of salvation through Christ Jesus,
but He sets the time as to WHEN.
.................
First written in 1981. Revised and expanded in October 1999.